DO NOT BE ANYONE’S GUINEA PIG

Dear family, at each and every Holy Mass, the priest calls all the faithful to pray the Lord’s Prayer, remind- ing you that we pray that prayer, quote, at the Savior’s command, and further, that we pray that particular prayer because we were formed by Divine teaching. Therefore we dare to say Our Father, because Jesus’s Father is our Father too. And we conclude that Lord’s Prayer with these words: “lead us not into temptation BUT – here it comes – deliver us from evil.”

And then the priest continues with a similar prayer: Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We have heard all these most-profound prayers so many times that we go through it like on auto-pilot, with- out serious consideration. Yet there is a reason, all that is prayed just before we receive Holy Communion, Jesus, the source of Grace and heavenly glory. The timing of it all is a clue to its greatest importance.

To even begin to understand it, we have to have a firm grasp on what actually is evil, or what evil actually is. Few people get it.

For instance, in the first reading on Tuesday, we heard of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, who was stoned to death by the mob. We can bet St. Stephen knew the Lord’s prayer, and we can bet he prayed it countless times, yet look what happened notwithstanding. St. Stephen prayed “deliver us from evil” but that did not stop people from stoning him. Did his prayer not work?

What about us? When we, in our lives, are faced with evil, even after we have prayed time and time again, deliver us from evil,” does that mean our prayers are not working?

Dear family, on this day last year, we were on about day 43 of so many of the hierarchy consenting to, even encouraging, the Lock-Out. Either we get this answer right, or our souls are at risk. Dear family, it bears repeating that for the first time in the entire history of the Catholic Church, the actions of so many of the hierarchy have taught the people what is essential in life – WalMart and Home Depot – and they have taught the people what is not essential for eternal life – The Holy Mass, the Sacraments, Baptism, Confession and The Holy Eucharist. Oh dear family, the ramifications, the repercussions, to this unimaginable, unmiti- gated and relentless attack on the foundations of our Faith – we have no clue.

But one year later we do know this: Before the Fear-demic Hoax, from which 99.65% of people recover with little or no symptoms, 75% of people did NOT come to Holy Mass even on Sunday and now that number is far greater. Before the Fear-demic Hoax, 70% of Catholics did NOT believe in the Real Presence and now it’s up to about 80%. And to this day we still have MANY shepherds acting like they don’t have a brain in their heads, masking up in the Sanctuary and calling police to arrest people who do not.
To fully comprehend the Godless sacrilege these shepherds perpetuate, the cowardice they perpetuate, hear this about one our great Saints to whom we ask intercession: St. Aloysius Gonzaga, who was not a coward when faced with a real deadly and contagious plague:

In 1591, a plague broke out in Rome. The Jesuits opened a hospital for the stricken, and Aloysius vol- unteered to work there. After begging alms for the victims, Aloysius began working with the sick, carrying the dying from the streets into a hospital founded by the Jesuits. There he washed and fed the plague vic- tims, preparing them as best he could to receive the sacraments. But though he threw himself into his tasks, he privately confessed to his spiritual director, Fr. Robert Bellarmine, that his constitution was revolted by the sights and smells of the work; he had to work hard to overcome his physical repulsion. He died of the plague on June 21, 1591.

Dear family, we now are 13 months into the global Fear-demic Hoax, brought about because so many people at the top -in both the secular world and in the Church – are in fact doing everything they can to es- tablish a Godless Humanist one world government, and a meaningless one world church. This I have said before – so many shepherds might as well have put a blinking neon sign above their churches, “not essential – not essential – not essential.” Recently a shepherd of the Church said that if a person cannot find a priest, then one could make a sincere act of Contrition and be forgiven, quote: “People who cannot get to confes- sion because of the coronavirus lockdown or another serious reason can go to God directly, be specific about their sins, request pardon and experience God’s loving forgiveness.”

At the time, a nationwide lockdown was in effect in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Churches were open for private prayer and priests could hear confessions if and only if they were wearing a mask and gloves and stay more than 3 feet away from the penitent. Clearly such shepherds failed to read the example of a saintly Jesuit, St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Dear family, far as I know, there was not a single death in that country related to starvation because people still drove to and from the grocery store and gas station. And yet, Confession suddenly was made non-essential. Is it any wonder the weak in Faith just found ready excuse to not come to Holy Mass, to not go to Confession, and to not believe in the Real Pres- ence?

Dear family, “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil” does not mean make sure we do not feel pain and suffer- ing, or suffer severe or even terminal illness. What “deliver us from evil” means is deliver us not from those things or persons that can kill the body, but rather from those who can kill the soul.

So let us not drink the Kool-aid of the Fear-demic Hoax, nor follow those cowardly shepherds who hide from something from which 99.65% of people recover with little or no symptoms at all. Let us avoid those who fear mortal death so much that they put eternal souls at risk. And – even in the midst of such egregious abandonment of the flocks to which those shepherds have been appointed to tend, let us, now more than ever, adhere to the testimony of St. Paul in 2nd Thessalonians:

“[God] as called you through our gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.” 2 Thess 2:14-15

Father James Altman